Dr. Feist awarded the PassivHaus Pioneer award to Amory Lovins to kick start a new tradition to honor the influential individuals who pushed our understanding of efficiency in buildings at this year’s 15th annual international PassivHaus conference at Innsbruck in Austria. He outlined briefly his early thoughts about Amory’s visionary book “Soft Energy Paths (1979)” and pointed out that it took him a while to realize that Amory really was right on the mark with his assessment that we need to shot for nothing less than 80-90% increase in efficiency. So very true! I always was inspired by Amory’s work and enjoyed seeing him honored and mentioned in Europe by the PassivHaus instituted. I am looking forward to his new book he is finishing up at the moment “Reinventing Fire”. Often times we forget to appreciate the work of these early pioneers of their time…and the many folks who do so much incredible work every day which nobody ever talks about.

Also notable was the drastic increase in attendees from the US this year…from 5 lone souls of the early days to about 68 at this year’s conference with several folks presenting it was a clear message that PassivHaus has gained momentum in the US. With 1200 participants from 43 countries it was a good mix of folks with good networking and inspirations and as usual a very well organized event.

Thanks everyone for being there – and the good company I shared with many of you. Sorry time was short and I couldn’t hang around.

Happy Building everyone.

Thorsten Chlupp